Ming-Chi Kuo, KGI Securities analyst expressed his belief in a report issued today that Apple will release a thinner, Retina-equipped Mac notebook next week. Kuo is also of the opinion that Apple will discontinue its line of 17-inch MacBook Pro's.

Ming-Chi Kuo, KGI Securities analyst expressed his belief in a report issued today that Apple will release a thinner, Retina-equipped Mac notebook next week. Kuo is also of the opinion that Apple will discontinue its line of 17-inch MacBook Pro's.

According to the report,

"We expect Apple (US) to unveil a new MacBook series independent from the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro lines at Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June. We expect the new MacBook to have the following features:

(1) Basic 13" model to be priced at US$1,199 (2) No disc drive (3) To come in both SSD and HDD (4) Lighter and slimmer than MacBook Pro, with equal computing power (5) Retinal display with tapered edge, larger battery capacity"

Kuo thinks that this notebook will be released alongside upgraded versions of Apple's existing 13-inch and 15-inch notebooks, being reluctant to get rid of the 13-inch model due to its incredible popularity.

Kuo has predicted in the past that Apple will discontinue its 17-inch MacBook Pro, and continues to affirm this point, citing estimates that the computer constitutes only 1% of Apple's notebook sales.

Note that the mention in this image of an independent graphics chip under the 13" MacBook Pro is an error – it should be integrated graphics

Apple's WWDC (Worldwide Developers Conference) is going to be held from next Monday to Friday. Everybody is, therefore, watching next week to see what products of the annual rumor mill will be confirmed or denied. The same goes for this story, which is only one of many that project new products/upgrades for the WWDC event.